


And We Call Him Chipmunk

by lapsus_calami



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Short, bucky and steve trained together for the army, parachuting from a plane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:19:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/pseuds/lapsus_calami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Bucky overthinks things and just has to remind himself Steve is special. And he’s never quite sure if he means a special kind of person or a special kind of idiot. Sometimes he thinks there’s really not a difference between the two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We Call Him Chipmunk

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was originally written for a friend (and much love goes to said friend). Also, this was born from a story my history teacher once told my class about this one time he jumped out of a plane. 
> 
> A few notes: This is pre-serum Steve. Canon Divergence or even straight up AU depending on how you want to look at it. Bucky and Steve are in training together and everyone is a little afraid of something.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s not that Bucky’s not happy his best friend is at training with him and gonna be fighting the good fight by Bucky’s side right where he belongs because Bucky’s happy about that. He is, really. But it’s _Steve_ , and so a large part of Bucky is just plain fucking scared.

Because Steve is all of a hundred ten pounds soaking fucking wet, okay? Steve is a _little_ dude, and Bucky doesn’t want to be an asshole and say smaller dudes are weaker or more fragile, but it’s a little hard to support the They Can Do Everything I Can cause when it’s _his_ hundred-pound buddy jumping out of airplanes or staggering under the weight of the seventy-pound gear.

Steve is the smallest dude in their section clocking in at five feet one inch and a whopping hundred and four pounds. It’s not hard to get a little over protective, okay? Especially when said five-foot friend has the tenacity and conviction of a six foot seven giant with none of the muscle mass to back it up.

Don’t get him wrong, Steve has muscle. Nice, lean muscle that probably contributes to a good fourth of Steve’s weight. But that’s hardly the point, and sometimes when Bucky thinks of what Steve had to weigh _before_ gaining all that lean muscle it’s almost enough to make him wrap Steve in a blanket and lock him safely away in a box with cookies. It’s not like Steve was ever unhealthy as a child, except, yeah, all those times he nearly died between infancy and joining the goddamn army. But he was obviously healthy _enough_ to be accepted into said goddamn army. That or the army was plain fucking desperate. Or Steve fucking lied. Neither of which Bucky has ruled out as of yet.

Sometimes Bucky thinks Steve is a goddamn idiot. Boy had a perfectly good excuse to not go die in Germany, but fucking lied to get the chance. If you ask Steve he’ll tell you he joined because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes Bucky thinks Steve joined because he got drafted and Steve wasn’t about to let him go die in Germany alone. Sometimes he wonders if Steve thinks less of him because he is only here _because_ he got drafted. Steve never says as much and Bucky never asks. But he does wonder how much courage has to be bubbling in a five-foot frame to voluntarily go die halfway around the world when he couldn't manage it with all the courage in his five-foot nine glory.

Sometimes Bucky overthinks things and just has to remind himself Steve is special. And he’s never quite sure if he means a special kind of person or a special kind of idiot. Sometimes he thinks there’s really not a difference between the two.

Today, though, well today Bucky’s kind of really set on Steve being a special kind of idiot. Because the dumb boy is actually excited. To be jumping out of a plane. While it’s flying. Thousands of feet above the ground.

Bucky’s not afraid. He isn’t. But to stand here watching Steve jump around and chatter excitedly while all Bucky can think is _this is a bad fucking idea_ well, to be completely honest, it seems like a repeat of the same goddamn thing they always do. Steve charges ahead and Bucky thinks _bad fucking idea_ before following right on after _._

As their section pulls on their gear and settles into the plane for take off, Steve grinning at him and rambling on about terminal velocity and how objects with more mass have a higher terminal velocity than objects of lesser mass, Bucky can’t help but think that, for once, his five-foot nine body and a hundred fifty-eight pounds might actually be a bad thing.

* * *

The actual jump goes beautifully. As beautifully as jumping out of a goddamn airplane midflight could go at any rate.

Bucky hangs back, delaying the inevitable as long as possible. Steve hangs back with him, the little shit, smiling the whole time like he’s having the goddamn time of his life. All the while Bucky is doing his goddamn best not to lose his sparse breakfast all over the plane. He’s a nervous flier at the best of times and knowing he’s going to be deliberately abandoning the plane in the not too distant future is really not helping.  

Steve pats Bucky’s shoulder supportively as he walks by then fucking salutes, the little shit, before dropping out the back of the plane. Bucky swallows heavily, sucks a deep breath, sends a quick prayer up to God—figures he’s closer to the big guy in the sky now than he’s ever been before—and takes a running leap out the back of the plane after Steve. Because Steve may be a little shit but Bucky will follow him anywhere up to and including the end of the line. And if that end of the line is out the back of this plane then God save his fucking soul.

The air rushes by frighteningly quick. Bucky doesn’t actually see anything for a few seconds. Maybe because he’s overwhelmed by being in sudden free fall. Maybe because he actually has his eyes shut tightly at first even as he immediately struggles into position with his arms and legs extended out belly to the earth to give him a perfect view of his potential demise. Maybe because he actually manages to black out for a second. He’ll never admit the truth, not even to Steve.

When he finally takes in the view, well, it’s beautiful even if it’s his potential demise. The earth is stretched out far below him, a breathtaking span of greens, yellows, and browns. There are fields and meadows and forests all far, far below him. And in amongst all of the greens and browns is a stunning stream of blue, a river meandering lazily in and around the hills.

His section is below him, all nine of them falling in perfect form. Instinctively he seeks out Steve, identifying his smaller frame easily amongst the others. That and somehow Steve manages to convey simply through body language how much he’s enjoying himself plummeting at nearly one hundred eighty feet per second towards the ground, arms spread wide and obnoxiously stable. Bucky can feel himself struggling to hold the position, wonders if it’s actual technique or the screaming little voice in his head that definitely thinks he’s about to fucking die.

He’s halfway through the thought that whoever decided jumping out of planes was a good idea is a goddamn idiot when Steve lets out a loud whoop that is almost immediately echoed by the rest of the section. Bucky hesitates a moment, like maybe yelling during free fall is a bad idea, but he can practically feel Steve’s expectation floating back to him like a physical presence so he doesn't hesitate long before pushing out what sounds to him like an earsplitting howl.

It’s liberating. Maybe it’s just an acceptable form of screaming his head off as he plummets to his possible death, but he doesn’t stop, just keeps on hollering until his lungs are protesting his rapid use of air. Bucky can actually feel some of the tension bleed out from him with each shout and it’s glorious. The others pick it back up; first Steve then the other eight. Bucky wonders what they would sound like to anyone outside of their section. Wonders if people on the ground could hear them, ten army recruits plummeting to the ground like a bunch of howling assholes, and the thought actually makes him grin.

One by one, they each pull their chute, in the same order they jumped from the plane. Watching a parachute unfurl and catch the air is nothing short of amazing, literal life saving in action. Bucky watches nine chutes open beautifully, including Steve’s, then pulls his own. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a minute.

He hears the snap of the parachute, feels the tension in the cords, then the chute catches and he’s yanked up. Or rather he decelerates, whatever, Steve, he’s slowing the fuck down and really that’s all he cares about. Almost immediately he feels calmer; he’d still rather be on the ground but controlled plummeting to the ground is far better than free fall.

The others are whooping now, hooting and hollering as they drift over tranquil forests and across that goddamn beautiful river, and Bucky joins in because, hell yeah, they just did their first jump and he’s not fucking dead. And neither is Steve. Or any of the other assholes. So it's a win on all fronts.

He drops by Steve, glancing over at just the right second to catch the little shit’s wide grin and flip him the bird before his line of sight is overtaken by his chute and all he can hear is Steve’s laughter. Their predetermined landing area is ahead; Bucky lets out a sigh of relief and starts working on making sure he’ll land as gently as possible. It goes easily and he’s all set to land just as he should be when he should be.

His mom always tells to tell him not to count his chickens before they’ve hatched. Bucky does understand what she means and agrees in most cases, but sometimes, like now, he feels the outcome is just so certain a little preemptive celebration is in order. So he’s cheering before his feet hit the ground, and once his feet actually do hit the earth, sinking a little into the beautiful soft dirt under the lovely green grass, Bucky is outright laughing in relief.

The other men are bustling around him, all working efficiently to unhook their chutes and begin taking care of their gear. Bucky is working through his on autopilot scanning the field for Steve and his euphoria at not being dead is rapidly dwindling. Because Steve isn’t in the field.

Bucky drops his chute spinning around to look in all directions. He notes Dugan and Jones. Falsworth, Mortia, Sawyer, and Juniper. Pinkerton is off a little further and Dernier is halfway across the goddamn field. But there’s no Steve.

Which is some kind of karmic punishment for counting his chickens before his eggs hatched, Bucky is sure. He was counting nine fucking chickens but now he has eight chickens and a missing egg. Because, somehow, in the last couple hundred feet of dropping through goddamn air Steve managed to go fucking missing.

It’s the shout that makes him look up. Which is kind of ridiculous. That he didn’t think to look up right away. But he didn’t, and it’s the shout that makes him look up. Bucky’s heart jumps to his throat even as Dugan and Jones nearly collapse into a pile of flailing limbs as they laugh. Falsworth is chuckling with Morita. Sawyer and Juniper come to stand next to Bucky, Sawyer letting loose a low whistle as Juniper says, “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s weird.”

Weird being Steve somehow still in the fucking sky.

Steve’s pulling on his cords and, if Bucky’s hearing serves him correctly, keeping up a steady stream of profanity aimed at the parachute as well. But each time Steve drops down any great distance, the parachute billows up, straining like an overfilled balloon, and yanks Steve right back up into the sky.

“He must be caught in an updraft,” Pinkerton calls over to them before cupping his hands and yelling up at Steve, “You’re caught in an updraft!”

Bucky thinks if he wasn’t currently feeling the weird mess of emotions he is feeling right now, of which absolutely none are fear, thank you very much, he’d laugh at Steve’s reply of, “No shit!”

But he is, so he doesn't. Instead he stares up at the parachute yanking his friend around like a sadistic Ferris wheel with his mouth hanging open like a goddamn fish. Because how the fuck is he supposed to help Steve all the way up there when he’s all the way down here.

“Perhaps a thermal uplift,” Juniper muses shading his eyes and watching the other man struggle. Steve is trying every trick they were taught to knock himself out of the air current but nothing is working. He just keeps dropping a bit then soaring back up. “Not enough weight,” Juniper continues and Bucky’s blood runs a little cold. _Oh_ , he thinks blankly, _this is all my fault_.

They’re all gathered below Steve now, even Dernier who’s breathing like he ran a fucking marathon to get across the field as fast as he did. Everyone’s yelling suggestions, too. Like if they shout at Steve enough the wind will magically let him go. Steve’s getting frustrated, Bucky can tell. His retorts and replies are pretty much exclusively comprised of colorful insults with intermittent expletives now. He even insults Morita’s mother.

But a frustrated Steve is a determined Steve, and despite warnings against such action he eventually starts pulling in on cords to force the front of his chute down. He’s got it pulled nearly vertical before he drops.

Bucky’s stomach drops with him, and Steve falls a fair distance before the parachute catches again and billows out. Unfortunately any relief felt is short lived as Steve is carried neatly away from them and promptly deposited roughly with a resounding splash into the river Bucky so insensitively called beautiful earlier.

Now Steve’s not afraid of water. Of course not. Just like Bucky’s not afraid of jumping out of planes. But Bucky knows Steve’s not exactly _fond_ of water either. In fact, just like Bucky’s not _fond_ jumping out of planes, and Falsworth’s not _fond_ of snakes, and Pinkerton’s not _fond_ of small spaces, and Dugan’s not _fond_ of large dogs, and Jones’ not _fond_ of spiders, and Morita’s not _fond_ of being bound, and Sawyer’s not _fond_ of crowds, and Dernier’s not _fond_ of fire, and Juniper’s not _fond_ of clowns, Steve not being _fond_ of water is pretty much common fucking knowledge.

So of course as soon as Steve’s dumped in the river all nine of them are booking it over to the riverbank as fast as humanly possible.

“Steve!” Bucky shouts. And it’s a bit pointless really because he doubts Steve can even really hear him. The parachute is caught in another draft and it’s dragging Steve through the water like a sack of soggy potatoes. If this even vaguely approximates how Bucky will feel every time Steve’s in any sort of danger once they’re actually deployed to Germany then Bucky is fucking screwed.

Steve’s thrashing in the water, desperately clawing at the buckles and snaps for his chute and all but disappearing under the water at times. Each time his head sinks beneath the water Bucky’s heart stops until Steve’s back up coughing and spitting water. Everyone’s shouting, a whirlwind of words rushing around Bucky and it’s all complete bullshit. Shouting’s not helping anybody, especially Steve.

The chute finally drags Steve to a shallower part of the river and Bucky wastes no time jumping off the bank and running full bore, as much as anyone can run full bore in shin deep water, at Steve. There’s an obnoxious amounts of splashing behind him as the rest of the section follows, and the water is cold and sloshing in his boots. He stumbles several times on the slick and shifting stones before he’s even near Steve.

Unbelievably the parachute is straining, nearly lifting Steve out of the water again, and Bucky takes one look at Steve’s wide and frantic eyes and just throws himself forward. He latches on to Steve’s waist, digging his fingers into the soaked material of Steve’s uniform and all but wrapping himself around Steve like a parasitic monkey from hell. They land back in the water with a resounding splash. Bucky’s nearly as soaked as Steve at this point, and the blonde is sputtering and spitting out water. Some of it somehow manages to splash Bucky in the face.

“That’s not a nice way to thank me,” he grumbles feeling the strain on the cords but thankfully Steve doesn't shift.

Steve spits out more water, this time aimed deliberately at Bucky’s face. “My hero,” he says derisively. Bucky scowls dropping his head to wipe his face ineffectively on Steve’s shirt. Since everything is pretty much soaked at this point it doesn’t really help. 

The others finally slosh their way over immediately reaching in to detach Steve’s parachute. Steve sighs when they finally get it loose and Bucky tentatively relaxes his hold. Dugan, Jones, Dernier, Morita, and Sawyer start working on untangling the cords and reeling the parachute in since it seems entirely determined to moonlight as a fucking kite for some reason. Pinkerton offers Bucky a hand up while Juniper and Falsworth set Steve on his feet.

Steve shakes his head, sprinkling all of them in water droplets, before setting out for the nearest bank. Bucky follows after him catching his elbow to steady him when he inevitably slips on some of the goddamn rocks. Steve scrambles up the bank and flops in the grass with an audible sigh of relief. Bucky climbs up next to him staring down at Steve while the other man squints up at him.

“Fucking hate water,” Steve says finally.

Bucky nods. “I know.”

“That,” Steve says waving an arm vaguely at the sky, “did not go as I planned.”

Bucky nods again looking up and squinting at the sun. “I know. My fault.”

Steve sits at that, squints as he peers up at Bucky. “What?” he says. “How do you figure that?”

Bucky drops down to sit in the grass beside him turning to Steve seriously. “Well see, I jinxed ya. On the plane when you were ramblin’ on about terminal velocity I thought, well, for once your complete lack of substance would help you,” he says with mock sincerity and reaches out to poke Steve in the arm. It’s a joke now that Steve is back safely on the ground. Well, maybe not yet, but it will be. One day they’ll look back on this and laugh until they can’t fucking breathe.

Steve sighs shaking his head. Likely in disappointment. Maybe in exasperation. “You’re an idiot,” he says.

Bucky shakes his head. He’s many things but he’s not an idiot, except for how, yeah, sometimes he’s a fucking idiot. He’s not about to admit that to Steve though, because out of the two of them Bucky’s definitely not the idiot. “No. I think that’s definitely you.”

Steve rolls his eyes then pushes himself to his feet turning to extend a hand down to Bucky. “Whatever. Come on, we should start heading in.”

Bucky accepts the hand up looking to where the others have successfully wrangled Steve’s chute in.

“You all right there, Chipmunk?” Dugan calls with a huge ass grin on his face. Bucky scowls, knowing how much Steve hates the nickname.

Steve points at Dugan, drawing himself up taller than his meager height should allow. “Don’t call me that,” he says for the millionth fucking time. It’s almost amusing except, no, because Bucky knows how much Steve hates the fact that he’s the smallest in the section. Sometimes Bucky thinks maybe the universe accidentally put them in wrong bodies; it’d explain a good fucking bit about their lives. Regardless, Bucky’s a good enough friend that he won’t tease or support said teasing of something Steve really detests.   

“No disrespect,” Dugan says with a laugh, the asshole, and puts his hands up in surrender before heading out of the river. The others trail after him, sloshing through the water towards the other bank. Bucky blinks wincing as he glances between Steve and the others. Fucking hell.

“Uh, Steve, buddy,” he says clapping Steve on the shoulder and squeezing in sympathy, “we’re on the wrong side of the river.”

Steve sighs, bracing his hands on his hips and tilting his head to the sky like he’s just three hundred percent done with the day. “Of course we are.”

**Author's Note:**

> So the original story went something like this:  
> "My history teacher in high school was in the military. Don't remember what branch but he was. And he had this buddy who was really little. Like barely hundred pounds little. So they called him Chipmunk. This one day they were doing jumps from an airplane. They were jumping out, yanking the cord, and parachuting down to the ground. So they they all jump. They all fall. They all yank their cords. Everything is going beautifully. Everyone but Chipmunk makes it to the ground. They all look around. Wonder where the little man is. Look up and realize poor Chipmunk got caught in an uplift. Poor guy was literally on a Ferris wheel of air. He wasn't heavy enough to to make the parachute fall down past the uplift. He just kept on sailing up, coasting down, then sailing up. So everyone is down below, yelling up at poor Chipmunk, right? Trying to tell him how to get down. He finally starts pulling in on the cords trying to get his parachute out of the uplift. Finally he yanks it down far enough that it cuts through the draft, nearly sideways. He plummets down, releases the chute so it catches the air again. Another draft grabs it and pulls him away from his buddies on the ground. And lands him right in a river. Now Chipmunk, poor poor guy, was terrified of water. And the wind still has a hold of his chute. So he's being dragged like a sack of soggy potatoes through the river while his buddies run along the bank. Finally he gets dragged to a shallower part of the river and all his buddies manage to splash over to him and latch on so he doesn't go flying anymore. They get him unhooked, reel in the parachute, and call it a goddamn day."
> 
> And from that this idea was born. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Follow on [tumblr](http://www.lapsuscalamiwriting.tumblr.com)


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